However, Australia currently appears to be the only country globally where the Government of the day is pursuing a model of acquiring legacy telecommunications networks — copper and HFC cable — which were already owned by that country’s major telcos — and upgrading them at the cost of many billions of dollars, instead of deploying new FTTP infrastructure to meet the country’s long-term needs. . . .

However, what Kenny won’t tell his audience is that these technologies are not being deployed by governments globally. FTTN and HFC cable are primarily technologies being deployed by telcos such as BT or AT&T which are already well-established in the markets which they operate in, because they are former incumbent telcos in those markets. As such, the use of these technology represents a logical minor investment for these private sector entities in infrastructure which they already own.

Nobody wants FTTN or HFC cable when they could have FTTP. These are clearly inferior technologies. But incumbent telcos deploy these technologies to keep existing customers happy with gradual capacity upgrades on networks they are already connected to.

Governments, on the other hand, aren’t forced into the same nasty and limited incremental upgrade cycle. They can afford the capital investment to deploy FTTP in their own right, and they historically do prefer it, because of the long-term, country-wide benefits that these kind of infrastructure can bring. Governments in countries such as New Zealand and Singapore have been saying this for years. They can afford to take the long view on infrastructure.

What Turnbull is doing with the NBN right now — and what Kenny won’t admit, because he helped put this botched policy together — is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

It is, in essence trying to upgrade legacy networks owned by Telstra and Optus for them and short-changing Australia in the process, instead of following Labor’s approach and using the Government’s own capital resources to give Australia the best broadband available in the long-term and making a profit off that infrastructure several decades down the track.